In my last blog I focused on the word “differences” as a way to start understanding diversity. Another word I used a lot was “recognition”. We need to continually be aware that people and groups are unique and that an individual’s or group’s uniqueness extends way beyond what our eyes can see. But the concept of diversity is more than just recognizing or being aware of differences. We also need to embrace or accept those differences. Thus, diversity involves both recognition and acceptance. I actually like the word “embrace” because for me it implies getting on board with things that are different from my own ways and actually celebrating the differences between others and myself. Recognizing individual or group differences…

By Dr. Skip Greenwood The concept of diversity is so complex that it’s a challenge to figure out where to even start talking about it. To better understand a concept I always look for key words or phrases in how that concept is defined or talked about. Webster defines diversity as “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements”: especially “the inclusion of different types of people (such as different races or cultures) in a group or organization”. A key word for me is “different”. What I have learned is the word “different” is more than seeing the obvious contrasts between individuals or groups such as sex, age, or color of skin. When it comes to diversity the…

We are excited to launch a monthly series written by our co-founders, Dr. Skip Greenwood and Dr. Will Henson, focused on what effective paraeducators know and can do. Keep a look out for our first post on Diversity and Inclusive Practices…coming soon!

Educators are often expected to fix almost everything. And there’s a one-liner educators often use about bringing their “magic wand” to a situation. Yeah, that’s educator sarcasm. But if there is a magic wand out there in working with students with emotional and behavioral difficulties, I have a guess at what it is – Managing your non-verbal communication!. Let’s start with the numbers. People get about 93% of your spoken message from your non-verbal communication: tone, rate of speech, posture, volume, facial expressions, etc. Students with a history of trauma over-rely on non-verbal cues to scan for perceived danger. In short, managing your non-verbal communication with students is as close as you are going to get to a magic wand!

Hello and Happy New Year from 321insight! As you can see, we have updated our website! You will notice not only a new look and feel, but you might notice that we have restructured the way we present our solutions. In our ongoing work with school district administrators and staff, we have determined that effective paraeducators need training in 6 key areas, as seen in this diagram. We are in the process of re-organizing our ParaSharp and Diverse Learners content, and added some great new tools to help increase paraeducator effectiveness in these 6 areas. In addition, we will be including some exciting new content to our ParaSharp product, including planning tools, data tracking sheets, graphical reference guides, and quizzes….